Cleaning the pigeon lofts

Now that all flights are finished, it is time to clean the pigeon lofts. A thorough annual cleaning is a must if you want to guarantee optimal health for yourself and your pigeons. Maintaining pigeon lofts is key to healthy pigeons.

But how do you actually start?

The first step is the most obvious, but not always practical. The lofts must be emptied so that you have some room to work.

That means:

All pigeons that stay in the loft must be placed elsewhere temporarily.

All loose parts must be removed from the loft.

You can temporarily put the pigeons in another loft, and then put them back later.

If you have enough time, and you can clean out a loft quickly, you can also put the pigeons in a large basket until you are done. This is not recommended, but I’ll explain why later in this article.

The individual parts such as; nests, watering bowls, food bowls, chapels and grids should be placed as close to the loft as possible, since all these parts must be put back in later. It is best to remove them as structured as possible, so that you can easily put them back in place later on.

When all that has happened, the loft is actually ready to be thoroughly cleaned.

A step by step process

The cleaning process consists of 6 steps, we will discuss each specific step further below.

Step 1: Scrape out the trays

You start at the top and then you work your way down, you let all the dirt fall to the ground.

A wonderful tool for this job is a “Triangular blade scraper“. With this you can easily scrape all tricky corners of the tray.

Step 2: Remove the dirt from the floor

If you have done step 1 correctly, there will already be a lot of dirt on the floor. It is best to take a brush and sweep it all together. After, you can remove it with a shovel. You can store this dirt in a bucket, bag or wheelbarrow.

Step 3: Vacuum cleaning

After you have completed step 2, we will start vacuuming. It is important that you make the loft as dust-free as possible. An industrial vacuum cleaner is a must-have for this job. You can vacuum up all the dirt without worrying about running the chance that the vacuum cleaner gets clogged.

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Step 4: Torch burner

When everything is vacuumed, it’s time to go through the loft with the torch burner. Here it is important that you reach every square cm. This step is necessary to kill all of the vermin!

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Step 5: Disinfect

This is the second last step with regard to cleaning the lofts. For this we use two products; ARDAP & Natural Itec Spray. After the cleaning process, we spray this in all the lofts.

Step 6: Cleaning individual parts

All loose parts are sprayed with a high pressure cleaner.

Cleaning out the loft is one thing, but you must also remember that there is serious dirt on the loose parts.

By thoroughly cleaning these, you ensure that everything is spotless again.

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Great job!

After you have followed all these steps the cleaning of the loft is over. The loft is now spotless and the individual parts can be put back into place.

Quick tip

At the start of this article I told you that it is not optimal to clean the lofts when the pigeons are out for a flight.
The reason for this is because we usually leave the lofts empty and open for a few weeks so that they can ventilate well!

Keeping the lofts clean is very important for both humans and pigeons. Consider the health of your animals as well as your own health. There is a lot of dust in a pigeon loft, so always remember to wear a mouth mask!